A place to discuss published SF—novels, short stories, comics, images, and more. Not sure if a book is SF? Then post it! Science Fiction, Fantasy, Alt. History, Postmodern Lit., and more are all welcome here. The key is that it be speculative, not that it fit some arbitrary genre guidelines. Any sort of link or text post is welcome as long as it is about printed/text/static SF material.

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Saturn's Children by Charles Stross might count. Humans are extinct and only our robots are left.

Then again, it might not be what you're looking for, since some of the characters resemble - and act - like humans anyway. The main character is a sexbot, so obviously she looks and behaves human (as is her function). However, her artificial nature is very much emphasized and there are several instances of very non-humanoid robots.

But, from what I recall, there truly are no humans around...there's no cop-out where it's like "oh but they were hiding" or "here's a human who's been in cryosleep this entire time!".

I've read it, and it is indeed a great book, but I seem to recall within the book some mention of primate development that might lead to human development. I didn't get the sense that humanity was absent, just perhaps not there yet.

well, it was definitely set in our universe (the poem at the beginning made that explicit), but before humanity had evolved. here's the poem:

"REMINDER" by Buck Coulson

The stardrive was discovered on a planet in Centaurus,
By a race that built their cities when the Earth was burning gas.
They swept across the starlanes in the dawning of creation,
And a million years of empire came to pass.

Their successors were a swarm of mighty insects from Orion.
They did not have the stardrive, but they did not ever die.
They smashed a dying empire and then settled down to rule it,
And another million years or so went by.

The Insects were supplanted when the drive was rediscovered.
They could not stop rebellion when they could not catch their foes.
And the Tzen became the rulers. They were reptiles from Arcturus,
And they worshipped the dark swamps from which they rose.

But the Tzen were few in number and the universe is mighty,
And they felt their domination slip away between their claws.
Others fought for domination and the universe was chaos,
While on Earth a creature shaped flint with its paws.

Now the first ones are forgotten and the Insects but a memory,
And the creature called Man stands upon the threshold of his fame.
But remember, puny Earthlings, there were others here before you,
And still others who will follow in your flame.

Depends what you mean by humans, but the latter parts of Greg Egan's Diaspora might qualify. Definitely Egan's Orthogonal series, as well--the physics are different there, so the biology is different, so the culture is changed as well.

The Gods Themselves by Asimov has entire parts of the book written under the perspective of bizarre extradimensional aliens that have no direct contact with humans, and don't even know the word "human" or what we look like. They only know that someone (who happen to be us) is getting the stuff that they send to our universe...

John Brunner's Crucible of Time. It has been a while since I have read it, but it is mainly an evolutionary, time spanning, world building story of an alien race that eventually has to form a way of escaping their planet from an interstellar threat.

I have wanted to read this for the longest time (for exactly the reason that it isnt about humans), but apparently there isnt a single library in the state that has a copy, and I haven't had spare money to order it at Barnes and Nobles for a long time. Thanks for reminding me though, I might just go get it tonight

i'd consider his dystopian works science fiction too, but i see what you mean. once i moved beyond his famous dystopian novels, i found he had a surprising lot of "minor" but still very well worth reading science fiction. (simak is that way too, he has written a lot, and most of it has a sort of vaguely pulpy feel to it, but it's still well worth reading)

when i was much younger there was a book that followed insectoid alliens fighting a war with cat-like aliens with no human ever being mentioned or showing up.

it was like a hive mind vs a pack/hunter mentality, it was at least 2 books long. it was good. and i lost it before i finished it, but at least up until 4/5th of the way through there were no humans at all

it was a cheap paperback type book, cover had a mantis or something flying a ship of some kind in formation

There are a lot of Fantasy books, Tailchaser's Song and Legend's of the Guardians. The SF book Encounter with Tiber has a large part to it devoted to telling the story of the Tiberians. And its written by Buzz Aldrin

Star Maker by Olaf Stapledon begins with humans but soon leaves that realm and hardly comes back to it. Instead, the reader follows the experiences of a star spirit as it travels throughout the galaxies.

Within the book, the Onlies are evacuated from the planet into the main Star Trek universe prior to the planet's return to its dimension, but a fluke lands the Enterprise in that timeline, meaning they are in a timeline where humanity as a race is entirely extinct, and had no influence upon the quadrant.

It's an interesting part of the book, and somewhat saddening to contemplate.